6.1 | / 10 |
Users | 4.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.5 | |
Overall | 3.6 |
An agoraphobic father teams up with a renegade priest to save his daughter from the clutches of a gang of twisted feral children.
Starring: Aneurin Barnard, James Cosmo, Ian Hanmore, Wunmi Mosaku, Amy ShielsHorror | 100% |
Thriller | 7% |
Drama | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
None
25GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Slipcover in original pressing
Region A, B (C untested)
Movie | 3.5 | |
Video | 3.0 | |
Audio | 5.0 | |
Extras | 1.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
It’s particularly ironic, if also obviously intentional, that Citadel, a horror thriller about the debilitating effects of agoraphobia is one of the most claustrophobic films in recent memory. Set in a dystopian present that is oddly reminiscent of the future depicted in Dredd 3D, Citadel explores the tormented world of Tommy (Aneurin Barnard), a young Irish man who, in the film’s terrifying opening sequence, watches helplessly from a descending elevator as his very pregnant wife is viciously attacked by a bunch of hooded kids. By the time Tommy is able to extricate himself from the elevator and ascend several flights of stairs, his wife lies mortally wounded in the hall of their decrepit tenement building. She lapses into a coma, but a healthy baby girl is able to be delivered. Several months later, life support is withdrawn from the woman and she dies, leaving Tommy to fend even more by himself to bring up his infant daughter alone. The attack and its aftermath has left Tommy a walking bunch of neuroses, barely able to walk outside, and a poster child for “victim stance”, as is described at a support group he struggles valiantly to attend. In the meantime, Social Services are threatening to take his daughter, his only real reason for even trying to do anything, away from him. Citadel exists in a slightly surreal world that seems to be grounded in the grimy everyday reality of Glasgow and Dublin (where the film was shot) but which has at least one major unreal element: when we finally get a good look at the gang of kids who attacked Tommy’s wife and who end up kidnapping Tommy’s young daughter, they’re not simply “feral”, as the film’s press material describes, they’re almost quasi-zombies, with glazed over eyes and horribly disfigured faces. If that just slightly removes the film from a more ostensibly realistic feeling, it doesn’t dilute the almost palpable horror that Tommy experiences, and in fact may increase it.
Citadel is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of New Video Group with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. Director Foy and cinematographer Tim Fleming have gone for an intentionally dark look throughout vast swaths of this film, which ups the anxiety quotient but often robs the image of fine detail, not to mention shadow detail. A lot of Citadel looks just plain murky, which is not to say that's not evocative. The film has also been color graded to a really sickly green or green-yellow tint in several key sequences, with other segments favoring a blue tint, two choices which again add a lot of mood but which tend to suck the fine detail out of the image. Things are decently clear in the few well lit exterior shots, but otherwise this high definition presentation is kind of muddy and ill defined quite a bit of the time.
Citadel's lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 audio is superb in virtually every way, shape and form, full of spooky (if contextually irrelevant) sound effects and some really aggressive LFE that ably recreates Tommy's fear of things that go boom in the night. Fidelity is exceptional and dynamic range is extremely wide. Surround activity is very smartly and moodily placed throughout the film, especially in sequences where we're kind of "inside" Tommy's head as he reacts to the increasing horror of the feral children. The only niggling complaint some may have with this track is the really thick Irish accents of most of the principals which, when coupled with the absence of any subtitles, makes understanding some of the dialogue more than a bit of a challenge. Otherwise, though, this is a sterling track that is easily one of the most effective horror audio mixes in recent memory.
- Director Ciarán Foy (1080p; 32:42). This repeats some snippets from the above featurette but goes into quite a bit of depth about Foy's intent in making the film.
- Anuerin Barnard (1080p; 10:45). The actor talks about his conception of the character of Tommy.
Citadel is undeniably effective quite a bit of the time, really smartly focusing on Tommy's debilitating fear rather than the outright shocks of consistent violence. There is some extremely gruesome violence in Citadel, mind you, but it only serves to comment on Tommy's state of mind. Where Citadel goes seriously off the rails is in its depiction of the so-called "feral" children, who, once we finally get something akin to a good look at them, seem awfully like genetic mutants or (heaven forfend) zombies. Otherwise, though, Citadel is quite well done and should certainly provide some requisite chills for those who like this sort of film. The video here is kind of middling, part of which may be intentional, but the audio is outstanding. Supplemental material isn't extremely copious, but what's here is quite interesting. Citadel comes Recommended.
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